Little Copper Cooking Pot
by Innocent Magic
Summary: "Sometimes you forget that I'm a sly, ambitious Slytherin and not one of your moral Gryffindor girls." Aoife Horlons is a 7th year struggling with the loss of her mentally ill mother and the impending reality of graduation. Add to that one James Sirius Potter, and she's spending a lot of time over that therapeutic little copper cooking pot.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** The first few chapters of this story were posted before under the same name, but the text has undergone almost a complete change because, as the content of this story might suggest, it's written during the more difficult moments (so if I don't update for several weeks, that's a good thing!) and so the writing was always tidy. Hopefully it's all sorted now. Reviews make a writer happy, and they make Aoife more open with James (maybe.. probably not.. that would be odd).

* * *

**Chapter One**

November 28th found me in the kitchens, surrounded by helpful little house elves, stirring a small copper pot filled with hand-made chicken soup. I wasn't technically allowed in the kitchens, and I definitely wasn't allowed to be out of my Slytherin rooms at so late an hour, but the professors would understand, should I run into any. I had to cook if I wanted to be happy.

Mama always cooked when she was happy. She'd line up a dozen bowls of flour and egg and all kinds of spices, and we'd spend an hour just choosing which way we'd bread or batter our chicken. By the time I was seven, it was my sole responsibility to give the chicken a good whack with the spatula until the poor piece of meat was flat enough. She'd help me wash my hands under the tap, using her wand to levitate me just slightly so that I could reach the stream of water. And she'd always, always, let me shape the pasta exactly how I wanted.

When she was down, though, her wand took care of everything for her. Honestly, I did try to lend a hand whenever I was around, but this more often than not pushed her further into her despair and guilt. So we learnt to compromise: when she needed me most, we'd settle in front of her Muggle television and watch whatever she wanted, drinking cheap Coca-Cola from wine glasses, pretending we were fancy. Sometimes, just sometimes, I could make her smile. A genuine smile, I mean. She always put one on for show for me.

Those false smiles still haunt me; they make me wonder if there was anything more I could have done to help her.

I would worry for her whenever I had to go away for school, but she'd order me to live my life as any other person should at Hogwarts. Mama's ex-boyfriend – my estranged father – dropped by every so often to check up on her, but he had a busy job and a life of his own to live. He cared, just sometimes that seemed the worst possible thing he could do, and mama used to say too much of his Gryffindor must have rubbed off on her to make her give him up.

I was sixteen when she committed suicide.

If I were honest with myself, I'd always anticipated it, always knew it was the inevitable outcome, always been a little bit proud of her for lasting as long as she did. Is that wrong? She'd just never been truly happy, not by normal standards; there had been plenty of 'low' periods to prove it.

That didn't mean it didn't crush me to hear she was gone. She'd been my mama, my best friend, and I'd loved her. She'd loved me back just as much, and I've never let myself think otherwise – I was her 'baby Aoife'. But there still wasn't a day I didn't think of her and wish things had been different.

Why did I have to be the one with the mentally ill mama? Why couldn't the responsibility and the pain have fallen to someone else, someone stronger? I've never been 'strong'; I was never in touch with my emotions, nor with anyone else's', for that matter. It just always struck me as unfair that mental illness should even exist. On my darkest days of grieving, I resented my mama for ever having me. But that wasn't fair. She'd needed me, and I had meant something. I'll always miss the feeling of importance and necessity I had around her. Without me, without her child, she had less. She used to tell me that without children, her life meant very little. That always scared me to know.

Mama had died on November 28th, just a few months into my sixth year at Hogwarts. She'd thought it all through, intelligent and loving and just simply a mother until the end. Her owl, Pecan, had delivered me a special ribbon-bound note the following morning, explaining everything except how she'd actually done it. The coroners hadn't told me that part either, and I think for that I'm thankful. Aged sixteen, it had been hard enough just wrapping my head around the idea that my beloved mama had finally given up.

I was never alone though. Mama had made sure there were support systems in place for me, people who would gladly take me in over the holidays and would love me like a daughter. She hadn't been a good friend of many people, but there were enough. Mr Malfoy had always held a soft spot for me – and it wasn't only out of pity. He'd named me 'the true spawn of Satan' after an episode, when I was maybe six or seven, involving his son, Scorpius, some clever thinking on my part, and Cissa's stinging plants. She'd had them placed sporadically at the forefront of the flower beds at the time, I think to stop us young ones touching the more exotic plants hidden behind.

I'd been stung just that afternoon and was feeling… petulant, to say the least. Scorpius' frequent bouts of accidental magic had come in very useful in disposing of the plants in the most violent of ways. Mama had been furious that I'd used a boy a year my junior to dispose of one of Cissa's plants, but she could never stay mad at me for too long, and the Malfoy's always appreciate a show of the Slytherin nature.

So it had felt right, okay, that the Malfoys should have extended an invitation to stay as long as I required, though I all but forced them to allow me not to take advantage of them. I was tasked with tutoring darling Scorpius during the holidays, to protect him during term-time (we never told him about this), and to baby-sit Auriana (their adorable little daughter, ten years younger than myself) when the adults attended functions.

And when I returned to Hogwarts for my final year of schooling, it was with a small portion of the money left to me by mama that I purchased all of my school supplies. She would have been so proud of me, made prefect in my final year, maybe even prouder than she had been when we'd received my OWL results.

Mama had been a bright student back in the day, and was still incredibly perceptive and quick until the very end. Yet I had struggled, during first and second year, to find the right balance between my friends, my learning, and my fretting over what might be happening at home.

During the summer before third year, Mama and I had worked through my textbooks near on every day. Even during her down moments, she was determined we would get it right. She had a patience with me the teachers have rarely ever managed.

My grades have risen steadily ever since, and I achieved Es and Os in all my subjects in fifth year. Mama definitely went overboard in celebrating my results: I've kept the new dress-robes she bought in a Goblin-made wardrobe at Malfoy Manor, and I remember clearly her taking us both out to the most expensive restaurant in Diagon Alley, Le Chaudron D'or.

I'd made her happy; who was I to complain that I was being spoilt silly.

And I was happy too, I promise.

Just, when that happiness needed a slight push to start up, I retreated to the castle kitchens and I cooked.

So there I was, on the 28th November, remembering my mama and bending over a bubbling pot to take in the scent of home. Even the house elves at the Malfoy's had never been able to produce something that smelt as delicious as mama's home-made soup recipe. I think they used too much pepper, personally.

I was so lost in remembering my mama, I didn't notice until too late a pair of strong arms wrapping themselves around my waist. One day, I thought, I'd manage to not get into needless trouble.

* * *

**A/N **Thank you for reading to the end! I'm not above begging - please leave some feedback. Or read onto the next chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

_I was so lost in remembering my mama, I didn't notice until too late a pair of strong arms wrapping themselves around my waist. One day, I thought, I'd manage to not get into needless trouble._

**Chapter Two**

I shrieked, loudly, and stamped my foot down hard. Or, at least, as hard as I could when scared witless next to a simmering cooking pot. As it turned out, that was quite hard enough.

"Good Godric, woman!" yelled a familiar voice.

I kept my wooden spoon in hand, though, just in case– if it was an imposter with impeccable voice-acting talents, I was fully prepared to strike. Turning slowly, the first thing I noticed was a sudden lack of house elves. I could just about spot a number of the older ones shuffling as fast as they could away from where I was standing. They're not a species too keen on conflict, I think.

Completing my full one-eighty brought me face to face (or maybe face to chest) with a stooping, wincing, whining James Sirius Potter.

My other half, you might say.

Actually, don't say that. Don't say that at all, not anywhere around either of us, or anyone else for that matter, unless you want to experience the wand-work of a witch with six Os under her belt and a penchant for Transfiguration.

He was my other half, technically, in that we'd been paired for the term to carry out our prefect rounds together. One evening a week, from nine until ten thirty, we'd patrol the corridors on the east side of the castle, docking points (or, more usually, letting go with a warning) any potential trouble-makers and students out of bed.

It was an arrangement that suited us fine, being that we'd been cautious friends for some time. Even if I was a resolute Slytherin, cunning and conniving to the core, and even if Jamie was most definitely the ideal Gryffindor (pig-headed and stubborn, cough), we shared an interesting history in Transfiguration.

Jamie, rather unfortunately, was always extremely and naturally gifted at spell-work. For the first couple of years of Hogwarts, I was not. When we'd entered – separately – Professor Forbish's classroom on the first day of third year, we were, without any consultation, assigned our paired desks for the year based on how well we fared in our most recent end of year tests – which, of course, I'd failed abysmally. The weakest were with the strongest, so I ended up with the boy who took house rivalries a step too far sometimes, Potter.

It had been quite funny, the first few weeks of term, watching Jamie's reactions to everything I did. Each lesson, I seemed to be teaching him that Slytherins were as normal a group of people as anyone else. He'd give a startled little jump in his seat whenever I giggled at the goings on of the class, and would watch me warily whenever I picked my wand up from the desk.

One lesson, I'd tried making it the whole way through without setting the piece of silver birch down at all – by the end he'd looked at once close to fainting, and relieved.

The real problem that year was in what the teachers saw. That was the year after mama took charge of my learning, the year I really began to flourish, most notably in Transfiguration and Charms. Mama had helped me to understand enough of the theory for the basic spells that from there everything made a lot more sense.

None of my professors, however, had been aware of the input at home and put my rapid progress down to the influence of my class-partner.

From then on, we were a begrudging team. It was fairly convenient, to be honest, given how I was still not at my best in the more artistic subjects such as Potions and Ancient Runes, and how Jamie, in his panic to live up to his father's talents, had let himself become lost in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Like yin and yang, we fitted together just enough to make it through that year in good spirits with houses forgotten.

It stayed in the classroom and the study rooms through the start of this year, though. Even when I could be found helping his sister, Lily, cope with our house of scheming and networking, Jamie and I kept a respectful distance. His friends were my friends, sure, but we never once spoke unless it was to do with schoolwork.

Our friendship passed as I assume do all of Rose Weasley's: strictly kept to discussion of school. Maybe that's rude of me to say, but Scorpius thinks she works too hard as well, and he sees her far more often than I do.

For seventh year, I'd seen a small change. He smiled more at me, for one. That may sound a ridiculous thing to notice – he wass James Potter, for Merlin's sake, Quidditch captain, Gryffindor prefect and all-around Golden Boy. He was always grinning like some kind of loon. But when he smiled at me, there was something different, something that didn't show in his smiles to others. There was a sense of trying in his smiles; they were the sort you gave when you have to break bad news to a small child, but wanted to cheer them up first.

His smiles were patronising at best, and downright insulting at worst. They were smiles of pity, like he could see something about me he thought needed help. Like he knew I wasn't happy and was making an effort to cheer me up.

I really didn't like it.

But as I stood there staring down at his handsome face screwed up in pain (I'll never now doubt my strength when terrified; perhaps I should have become a Beater), I reminded myself to calm. The soup would be ready soon and then I could ask him – very politely and very much in tune with my search tonight for contentment – if he could never, ever, _ever_ sneak up on me again. Ever.

I offered him an apologetic smile and a hand to get him back upright, before giving him a quick once over. Just to make sure the whole affair was safe, I mean. Those brown eyes looked like his alright, and there was the small scar under his eyebrow. I still hadn't been told where that had come from. Those were physical features, though. If this was an imposter, they could be easily replicated by a Polyjuice Potion.

Not a clue why anyone would want to impersonate the boy and sneak up on my in the school's kitchens, but it was a possibility. A girl needed to be prepared for every eventuality.

Looking closer at the git, it became obvious – that Godric-awful smile was there, a simpering look of 'you're too fragile to be treated normally'. I sighed: half relief, half resignation.

"Give me a second, Jamie," I said, just as the pot behind me began to hiss, "I'll deal you out some soup, if you'd like, and then I might forgive you for that heart attack."

With my pulse returning to normal, and my fear lessening with each word, I made an effort to lose the animosity. It wasn't his fault he'd just rampaged through all my memories of mama and left me with a horridly cold somewhere under my diaphragm.

I spun back to finish the dish and serve it out, just as a chair scraped the flagging somewhere close, and the soft footsteps of a house elf approached, the wee sod probably feeling obliged to take over the serving. Mama hadn't liked house-elves. They got in the way of the theraputic nature of cooking.

"Would you be liking Pumpkin Juice, sir?"

The high-pitched voices of house elves had always grated on my nerves, even though I knew they couldn't help it.

James was mumbling some kind of reply to the creature, from what I could tell, but I couldn't catch its name. The only one I could tell apart from the rest was Knotty, and that was only because he was the cousin of Scorpius' own elf, Misky, and had occasionally dropped by over the summer to help with the big banquets Cissa kept throwing for all her different charities.

I set Jamie's soup bowl in front of him with a little bit of expectation. I rarely cooked for anybody else, and I had only prepared meals for two other people since mama left: Auriana and Scorpius. They knew better than to let me know if it tasted disgusting.

James couldn't be trusted in the same way.

We ate in silence for several minutes.

My own was nice, for all it mattered. It wasn't the same as the way mama had made it, not yet, but I'm not sure if I'd ever feel comfortable replicating her taste exactly – I don't like the thought of it ever being something I associated not solely with her. But it was close enough that I felt some comfort. Midnight soup had always been my favourite cure for late-night sadness.

Eventually, though, the quiet became too stifling. There was something off about the picture, the two of us sitting over a bench in the kitchens eating the soup I'd spent an hour on. There was something even more off about the way he'd thought to greet me. He was a prankster, yes, and he certainly had no qualms about invading personal space, but since when had we been on hugging terms?

I coughed, just once, to grab his attention.

With a piercing look directly into his eyes, I spoke up, softly, but determined.

"What on Earth are you doing here frightening innocent women, Jamie?"

* * *

**A/N **Thank you for reading this far - again! Honestly appreciate you holding on to chapter two. Leave feedback, or read on, or leave in disgust I guess.


	3. Chapter 3

_"__What on Earth are you doing here frightening innocent women, Jamie?"_

**Chapter Three**

"You're hardly an innocent woman, Horlons. It's after hours, isn't it?" Oh, that sodding smirk!

"I should say the same to you!" I replied, indignant. He held my gaze, just for a moment or two. My glare could break the best of them.

He sighed.

"For your information, Lily came to ask if I'd seen you – maybe an hour ago? Al thought he'd seen you in the Puff corridors."

I raised an eyebrow. That didn't explain why he was here, in the kitchens, hugging me and eating my comfort food.

"This is the only place I'd go around here." He shrugged and looked down, explanation clearly finished. It would do, I guessed.

And I suppose it was plausible. Little Lily and I had quite a close attachment, despite her being three years my junior. She was more Scorpius' friend than mine – she'd visited the manor frequently over the past summer, and was stil just cute enough that I considered her a sort of pseudo-sister.

"Is she alright?"

"Hmm?" he asked. Git.

"Lily. Is she okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Charms query was all. We sorted it out in the end, so don't waste yourself fretting."

Something was off about him. He sounded cheerful, and his words were in good fun, but his eyes couldn't settle and his mouth – I wasn't one to hate, but the way I disliked that false sodding smile must have come close.

I wanted to snap at him, shout at him, let him know how irritating it was that every moment he was with me he looked ready either to shit himself or lock me in a tower. I wanted to really let go at him for intruding on my cooking time for such a blasé reason. I wanted to scream and punch and kick and cry and generally lose my control.

Most of all, at that very moment at least, I wanted to berate him for not having the common courtesy to comment on the meal.

"You make a nice soup, Effy."

Well, that cleared that up.

Wait, what?

"Effy?" I asked.

"You need a nickname." Was the lad on snorfelgrass? I have a nickname; I'm Horlons. He's always called me that.

"My name's – "

"Horlons, I know," he said smugly, "But a gentleman doesn't call a lady by her surname."

"You're not a gentleman," I tried to point out. And he really wasn't. He wore his trainers as scuffed as possible, had been known to belch in class (right next to my ruddy ear), and swore like a troll on the lash.

"Maybe I want to be."

"Effy's crap."

"I'll think up another then."

"Do you have an answer for everything, James?"

"Yes."

Merlin, he could be insufferable. It was probably a result of my heavy mood that evening, but my best friend – sweet, lovely Jamie – was acting a right prat, and it was causing a pain near the bridge of my nose.

"Look," he said, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I didn't mean to scare you, A."

I raised that brow again.

"Fefe?"

Now an eye-roll.

"Queef?"

"Bloody hell. no!"

He grinned, one of those proper ones that came with that special glint and that glimpse of his front two teeth. One of the ones you couldn't help return. One of the ones that softened you up and made you feel bad for anything you'd done wrong to the boy.

The little laugh I let out took it all too far for my conscience, though. It wasn't right to smile or have fun. Well it was, because that was all mama ever asked of me, to be happy. But today was our day, mine and mama's, and it was disrespectful of me to be finding amusement in something so immature.

"Thank you for checking on me, but I'm okay," I found myself saying. The lie was always on the tip of my tongue, ready to deploy to Gracie, Eva, Scorpius, Mr Malfoy, the teachers – all of them. "I think I just need some sleep."

"If you're sure," he sighed. He didn't sound too certain himself.

"I am."

There was nothing I desired more than to let out my own sigh, but that wouldn't help matters. What I needed was a television set and a wine glass filled with Coca-Cola. And mama. I really needed my mama.

Keen for an escape, I gathered up our bowls and cups and almost ran to the sink. My movements were hurried; I couldn't be bothered to worry about appearing graceful.

And all the time, Jamie sat where he was, watching me with care.

In seven steps, I made it to the door of the kitchens, robes wrapped tightly around my delicate frame. Right as I pushed open the portrait hole, I heard him call behind me, and it chilled my bones.

"You're not okay, Horlons. You're lying."

Well he could sod off, couldn't he.

Before I could begin to mull over the nerve of him, I'd made it down to the dungeons. The rest of that night, I couldn't keep still, couldn't settle. Concealed behind the curtains of my bed, and silenced by a spell Mr Malfoy had taught me when I'd first moved in with him – _Muffliato_ – I let myself fall into fond memoroes. My hands ran over and over the pages of the pretty photo-book my mama had left for me when she passed. I'd kept it in pristine condition thus far, the pink crepe covering protected by a simple shield charm to keep it from tearing.

As dawn broke, I finally drifted off to sleep.

Unfortunately, November 29th was a Thursday, and an hour later I was rising again. My honey-blond hair was falling in impossible tangles to the small of my back, and my grey irises stood out awfully against my bloodyshot eyes. Even my normally smooth skin was against me at the early hour.

It was too much. I was too exhausted to know where to start.

The reinforcements didn't need to be called in; they knew where help was needed, and got to it while I sat staring at the wall, helpless. Evalina and Grace-Adele were angels in disguise, I truly believed. That morning, they managed to save my face, and with it, my reputation.

Appearance was important for my position high in the social hierarchy of the school. It wasn't superficial – my looks were gentle, and helped me shrug off that horrid misconception that Slytherins were bred nasty. Evaline had that straight black satin-like hair you saw in the portraits in the dungeons, the sort of hair you thought could be inherited from Salazar himself. And Grace-Adele was no better – the girl could glare like no other.

Lily had once commented that my most snake-like trait was the fact I could probably convince anyone that I wasn't, in fact, a Slytherin. I liked the sound of that – made it easier to hold friends across the four houses. And that made for better job prospects.

In Ravenclaw, I had Reine Forkes. She was quite interesting, really, and spoke with a gorgeous accent from a childhood spent in Luxembourg. She'd been the first girl I'd met on the Hogwarts Express, chatting animatedly in French with Victoire, the eldest Weasley. It had helped, in first year, to be on first-name basis with the Head Girl. Befriending Reine had made that easy, and had even given me a useful in with the attractive Ravenclaw Quidditch team – she was their most formidable chaser.

Today would be a good day to avoid her. Of all my friends, Jamie aside it seemed, Reine was the one who'd ask questions, who wouldn't let me wallow in self-pity.

I could seek out the O'Callaghan twins, Siobhan and Cieran, a pair of Puffs I'd met during Scorpius' first week after he'd gotten lost and I'd run myself ragged trying to chase him down. He'd been telling Siobhan with wide, eager eyes all about his classes when I'd found them. For a while last year I thought he'd developed a crush on her. That was before I learnt an ample chest and attractive curves weren't really his – type.

But the twins would be determined to make me laugh, and that would start a whole new circle of guilt.

Delilah? She was a Gryffindor, and though mama had warned me they'd be the hardest to befriend because of my house's history, I'd clicked with her in the very first flying lesson of first year – she'd approached me, pretty auburn hair held back with ruddy butterfly clips, and asked me how I'd managed to get my broom into my hand. In return for flying lessons (and she was now reserve seeker for the Gryffs, so I must have been a decent teacher), she'd taught me how to act carefree like any other eleven year old. So Delilah Finnegan was definitely my closest friend, even if she was forbidden by her father to visit me at the manor.

She'd be a good point of call if I found myself in need of a hug during the day, I decided.

So Eva and Gracie it was.

"You can talk to either of us if you need to," Evaline said, soothing down my now perfect voifed hair. "We'll listen whenever you want us, Aoife."

I felt a familiar surge of affection for the both of them as I pulled on my stockings.

"I know," I murmured. Gracie gave a nod to show she'd heard, but no other acknoledgement was given beyond that.

Arm in arm in arm, the three of us descended to the common room as a fortress, impregnable. No one stood in our way as we strode purposefully out into the corridors, bags knocking against our backs and legs, robes blowing slighting in the chill of the dungeons.

Evalina was the one to choose our topic of conversation for the morning.

"Did you hear about Joseph Ickes, the cute Ravenclaw who left last year? Only gone and got himself a starting spot for the Magpies, the rogue!"

* * *

**A/N** You're becoming more and more my favourite person for still reading. I hope you like Aoife still - a good story needs the character to grow, and she has a lot of growing to do as well as healing, poor thing. Reviews appreciated, please!


	4. Chapter 4

_"__Did you hear about Joseph Ickes, the cute Ravenclaw who left last year? Only gone and got himself a starting spot for the Magpies, the rogue!"_

**Chapter Four**

Head high, I entered the Transfiguration room, ignoring the students around me whispering to themselves about some gossip or other. Very few stopped to watch me, so it clearly didn't concern me. That made a nice change.

I was to Slytherin what Lily Potter should have been to Gryffindor: their princess, so to speak. Naturally, that led to more rumours than were necessary about my every action. It stemmed from mama, who, as the first female descendent of the First and Oldest House of Brethwick in nine generations, had been royalty herself at school.

It didn't hurt that our status hadn't been tarnished in any circle by her family's lack of commitment to the Second Wizarding War.

In many ways, I've always thought that was what had drawn her to Uncle Zabini. He, too, had been neutral, mama used to say. It had been years since I'd last seen him, but I knew that hadn't been our ending. My mama's best friend wouldn't leave me. He'd be back soon, once he'd grieved enough.

My regular seat besides Jamie was on the far side of the classroom, beside the windows. Already I was beginning to regret not asking Grace to throw an extra cardigan onto the pile of clthese she'd picked out. I could just make out the first snowflakes beginning to settle as Professor Forbish used his want to set off the customary sparks to call us to attention.

"I'll need you focused today, seventh years," he called over the slowly quieting ruckus. "We're continuin with human transfiguration. By the end of the hour, I want you all to have managed to alter at least one feature on your partner's face."

He took a pause to charm a list of incantations onto the board. Then, "Well off you go," and that was it.

Great teacher, that one. Really cared for his students' education.

There came immediately the low hum of two-dozen students excitedly conversing with their partners over the opporunities the task presented. Jamie and I were no different.

"What you want, Horlons?" he asked cockily, "A pig snout, or something more inventive?"

I smiled, considering the possibilities.

"Surprise me," I replied. "I'm having too much trouble deciding which part of your face needs improving most deperately."

"Let's get this over with then," he said with a scary amount of enthusiasm. "Fancy going first?"

We turned to face each other, and Jamie was quite unashamedly struggling to keep his face impassive as the textbook instructed – I presume it was a result of the scrunched up look of concentration on my face. My eyes became rather squinty when I thought too hard.

The theory for human transfiguration was like nothing we'd studied in lower years. Altering the features of another human was completely different to the act of changing your own muscles and skin and hair – the things you'd been acquainted with intimately for seventeen years. This was an all-new ballpark. This wasn't anything my mama had explained to me, and it seemed something that to understand required you to be either a natural, or to have had hours and days and months of practice. We'd started this on Friday. I'd had a grand total of 20 minutes rehearsal for this moment.

This bloody stupid sodding moment in which I humiliated myself in front of the class.

"Woman wept!" the git yelled – a little melodramatically, in my opinion. "What did you do?!"

He'd caught the rest of the room's attention with the outburst, and I could only watch hellplessly as the eyebrow I'd been attempting to transfigure into a handlebar moustache (start simple, I'd thought) instead grew and grew. It didn't show signs of stopping, even as it began to shroud his face, even as it surpassed the legendary length and bushiness of Dumbledore's beard, with his only nose poking through safely.

"Don't just watch it, Horlons!" he shouted. He sounded panicked. Dammit, that _really_ didn't help.

I was frozen to the spot, shocked and utterly embarrassed. It was like being back in second year again, the dunce of the class (and okay, that was a slight exaggeration, but I wasn't the one people came to for homework help). I was a tiny wee thirteen year old again, incapable and incompetent, a disgrace and disappointment to the House of Brethwick. In my head, I was suddenly all the things my mama had tried to teach me I was not.

"I don't know what to do, Jamie," I admitted, flustered.

He couldn't speak to reply though, the hair having taken over his mouth, his face resembling a tar-coated Pygmy Puff. The boys in the class were laughing, I could hear them; the girls were nearly skrieking with worry that the 'sexy' Quidditch captain would perish.

In the hubbub, I couldn't find any humour. My wand had dropped to the floor, my legs were jelly. James had his arms about his head in alarm, shouts emerging muffled and distorted through the shrubbery that had become his face.

"I don't... I don't know–"

"Finite incantatum!"

Professir Forbish's resilient incantation snapped me back to reality. As he calmly undid my mess, I spotted that disappointed glint in his eyes, the same one all adults had when someone of my generation showed any kind of fear.

_"__Back in my day, your fear was only of the Death Eaters, and panicking meant the killing curse at the hands of fifty or so of them," _they'd drone. It was quite tiresome. Would the Death Eaters really have _Avada -ed _me for not knowing how to release James from the grip of his eyebrows.

Firbish was shoving his wand back up the sleeve of his robes when he next addressed me. He could take as long as he needed; I was still composing myself.

"Miss Horlons." Was he growling?

I gulped.

"Yes, sir?"

"What class are we currently in, Miss Horlons?"

I was really regretting staying up all night. It was hard to keep eye contact with the professor, let alone follow what he was saying.

"Class, sir?"

"This, Miss Horlons," he snarled, "Is Transfiguration. This is not a Charms class. The aim was to transfigure, not to engorge. So please, do tell how you went so drastically wrong."

With the eyes of the class on me, waiting for the Slytherin princess' eventual crack, I felt everything imploding. The odds were against me; my mind had gone blank; out of the corner of my eye, I could see James and returned to normal and he was looking at me with concern.

This was too much.

I met Jamie's gaze with a pleading look. Forbish wasn't one to go easy on a student for any reason – he was never going to let me off because of a rough day. He was no Professor Longbottom.

"Sir?" Jamie spoke up, questioningly. "I think it might have been my fault, Professor. I shouldn't have been moving when she cast the spell."

Never had I appreciated that boy more.

"In that case, Mr Potter, we'll have to assign some homework for this lesson, since you are all so clearly in need of more help. An essay, three feet, on the consequences of the caste or castee losing concentration."

The groans of the class echoed around the room. We already had mock exams to prepare for. There was barely any time left in the day to squeeze in a pointless essay, but then, Forbish had never been known for his fairnesss.

As I took my seat again, James still hadn't looked away from me. Forbish had launched into a spiel about paying attention in lessons. The rest of the class were pointedly ignoring him and glaring daggers at me.

"You okay?" James mouthed.

I shrugged. For once, there was no point lying outright; my warmed face and drooping eyelids were probably a dead give-away, no matter how well Evalina and Gracie had done me up.

"I will be," I mouthed back.

That was enough to spur Jamie into raising his hand.

"Professor, I think I should go to the Hospital Wing about my eyebrows. They're starting to, er, sting?" Forbish only nodded, distracted by Hannah Hague a few rows behind us – she'd begun snorting obnoxiously through the pig nose she'd been given by her partner.

"Can I take someone to make sure I get there in one piece?"

He was oozing charm now, pushing it as far as he thought he could get.

When Forbish again only gave a curt nod, Jamis grabbed my hand and hauled me from the room before I knew what was happening.

He didn't say a word until we'd made it down to the ground floor. My eyes were burning something dierce, my heels shuffling sluggishly. If I wasn't careful, I was going to lose control in the very public Entrance Hall.

"Can we slow down please, Jamie?" Merlin, I sounded pathetic. He glanced down, a soft look in place. For once, the grating smile was absent – definitely a relief. Giving my hand a squeeze, we descended one more staircase, ambled our way down one more corridor, and came to a halt only once we'd reached a familiar portrait of a bowl of fruit.

When we were sat inside at a table, the elves hastening to grab a few cookies at Jame's request, he turned on me.

"So what's up, darling?"

* * *

**A/N** I've been cooking a lot today. This wasn't meant to be... actually, what comes next is moreso. Not sure either of us know what I'm on about. Read ahead if you're still hear - we're not a quarter of the way through yet. If you're interested in Rose x Scorpius stories too, I've got one of those in a slightly different universe (Scorpius isn't a Slytherin), which is also based on real situations in my life. Try imagining me as a mesh of Aoife and Rose and you'll get a very messy twenty year old. Anyway, review!


	5. Chapter 5

_When we were sat inside at a table, the elves hastening to grab a few cookies at James' request, he turned on me._

_"__So what's up darling?"_

**Chapter Five**

What does he expect me to say? Does he expect that I would come right out and cry to him like some of the Puff girls do over lunch? Does he think that, though I'd never once told him the reason for a bad day before in all our years at Hogwarts, today would be the day I'd divulge all my down and dirty secrets?

He'd have had no clue at all if I were telling the truth or not. I could come out with some dragon dung about time of the month and he would still probably believe it. I could –

It doesn't matter. I shouldn't be getting so riled up in the first place about a guy obviously _trying _to be a friend. It's not his fault that I inherited a lot from my mama, and that an eagerness to keep things to myself is a part of that.

At a loss for what to say, I simply stare behind him, counting the number of copper tiles decorating the sink area.

"Do you remember, Jamie," I whisper, still focused beyond him, "when we were first partnered for Transfiguration in third year? And you were so scared of me because I was dreadful at magic. It was a lot simpler back then. There weren't as many expectations."

I pause to give him a chance to speak, but he doesn't. He doesn't do anything at all, nothing, and it's infuriating.

"Now there's so much pressure! Fail this or that test, and a dozen career paths close off. What in Merlin's name do they want me to do more than I am already? They keep demanding perfection and I can't give them that, Jamie. Sometimes I worry that I worry too much, and that that's holding me back. Is that silly of me?"

Again, no response, as though he's a damned Boggart or something.

"How do _you_ do it?" I ask, embarrassed.

If I'm honest with myself, I let slip just a little more there than I wanted, but nothing too bad. It's enough. All this genuinely has played on my mind everyday in bed, but it's obviously not everything. Potter doesn't get to know everything. This keeps our friendship based in school work and school problems, exactly where I'm comfortable. We're not _friends_, not really. We're Aoife and James, a Horlons and a Potter, a Slytherin and a Gryffindor who have a mutually beneficial study arrangement.

A study arrangement that includes essentially skipping class, a class most likely vital to our NEWTs preparation, to discuss 'feelings'.

"Why are you so agitated about what 'they' want from you?" he suddenly asks. "What's wrong with doing your own thing?"

"My own thing?"

"Yeah, like, I don't know. Take my cousin Teddy: he had enough of studying to be a Healer, so he took off to Romania to work with my uncle Charlie. He's really happy doing something he chose to do instead of trying to please Andromeda with fancy qualifications. Can't you, I don't know, find your dragons?"

"That's cheesy as crap and you know it, Jamie."

"It's true!" he insists. "You don't have to become the Minister for Magic if it's not what you want. 'They' can't make you."

"What if it is what I want? What then?"

"Then you still shouldn't let this 'they' get you down so much. You had me worried in there, darling."

It's adorable and heart-breaking, really, the look on his face that shows his disconnection from the real world. He's a Potter – there's a desk ready for him at the Ministry whenever he's ready to take it up. I'm a little girl living in a big old manor I've no right to once I've graduated. It would be taking advantages I don't deserve to impose myself more permanently on Mr and Mrs Malfoy's hospice.

"'They' are the people who'll be paying my wages, James. I exist to do 'their' bidding until I become them."

"Okay, Aoife." Does he really have to sound so calm, making me sound like such a moron?

"I've disappointed you, haven't I?"

"You can't disappoint me. Just, sometimes..."

"Sometimes you forget that I'm a sly, ambitious Slytherin and not one of your moral Gryffindor girls."

"No! I – I... I'm sorry."

"Me too." My face is twisted into some kind of distorted smile, eyes burning again.

He sighs, and I finally steel myself to look at him, properly this time. It's something I've done so many times before, looking at James Potter. Merlin, I was nearly gazing into his eyes earlier, trying to sort his eyebrows out! Now, though – this is different. His eyes are his eyes, same as always, but then again they're not. And his eyebrows, still thicker than they should really be, are scrunched together above his nose in a seriously cute way. I can count five, six... seven freckles on and around his nose.

"Aoife?"

Dear Merlin, why does his voice have to be so deep and gravelly like that? When did James Potter become so attractive?

More importantly, when did he get so close?

It's hard to keep my breathing steady when he's there and he smells so comforting. It's one of those moments where I want nothing more than to wrap myself in one of his jumpers forever and have his crooning Oxfordshire accent whispering sweet lies at me: it'll be alright; you're normal; you're loved.

"Aoife, I can't," he breaths, and I can feel the words more than I can hear them, his lips just a hair's width from mine. "Aoife, no. No."

I can't see him; I don't want to. All I want is for him to close that small distance between us and just kiss me already! The day's not going well, and I'm sad and almost throwing myself at him, so why's he saying no? I'm not hideous; I'm not unpopular; I'm certainly not unwilling.

But it's done. There's a wave of cool air passing over me, and the sound of the kitchen's heavy door closing not too long after.

That was that. He'd rejected me. I've gone and lost myself a really good... study partner.

I guess I've only lost a study partner.

"Knotty!" I call out, my voice cracking on that second bloody syllable. "Knotty, I need my cooking pot, please."

I busied myself, then, forgetting all about classes and assignments and James bloody Potter. Who needed that good for nothing tosser anyway? Frustrated, I tugged my hair into an uncaring bun atop my head, brushed the stray strands from my eyes, and set to work taking out all my bad thoughts on the pile of dough I'd built up on the counter top.

Mama would know just what to say right now. She'd give me a hug and tell me all about the many times her prat of a best friend, Uncle Blaise, had messed up.

My favourite was the story of the Yule Ball.

She'd wanted to go with him as opposed to a suitor, she said, but his arse was too far up him to think that two friends could dance together and not be on a date. And in the end, she had almost given in and gone with one of the many men who'd asked her, no matter that she was only a third year and wasn't really supposed to be there.

I think if I've remembered rightly, it had taken an elaborate invitation from Draco (including the presentation of yellow tulips – she had a beautiful smile, he'd explained) to kick start Blaise into, as she put it, claiming her as his date.

Occasionally, just every now and then, I used to pretend my life could one day be a fairy-tale like that. Yes, I held the same prestige as my mama had in the Slytherin house. And yes, Mr Malfoy and Uncle Blaise had always told me I looked just as she had in her Hogwarts days. But I was un-deserving of the kind of fierce, possessive love and friendship she'd be surrounded by.

I deserved a far-reaching collective of acquaintances more than that one absolute soul mate who'd do anything for me.

And that was fine, most of the time. Now, though? Right at that moment I needed the hug and the comforting words and the feeling of 'everything's fine' and the easy-coming smile.

Evalina and Grace-Adele weren't able to offer that, not really. We were always the sorts of friends who shared little more than gossip and revision notes. We gave each other silent support, the kind that involved sharing concealer to cover up bags under eyes after sleepless nights.

That was the moment I felt most alone, there in the kitchen.

I was wallowing, that much I knew, but I was allowed my down moments too, right?

* * *

**A/N **That'll do you for the time being. There'll be more chapters in a day or so. Reviews will speed the writing process up?


End file.
